As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles
to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald
has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office,
according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials.
The prosecutor has assembled evidence that shows Cheney's long-running
feud with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie
Plame.

In grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter
Judith Miller, Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney
may have known about the effort to push back against ex-diplomat
and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, including the leak of
his wife's position at the CIA, Miller and others said. But Fitzgerald
has focused more on the role of Cheney's top aides, including
Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lawyers involved
in the case said.

One former CIA official told prosecutors early in the probe
about efforts by Cheney's office and his allies at the National
Security Council to obtain information about Wilson's trip as
long as two months before Plame was unmasked in July 2003, according
to a person familiar with the account.

It is not clear whether Fitzgerald plans to charge anyone
inside the Bush administration with a crime. But with the case
reaching a climax -- administration officials are braced for
possible indictments as early as this week-- it is increasingly
clear that Cheney and his aides have been deeply enmeshed in
events surrounding the Plame affair from the outset.

It was a request by Cheney for more CIA information that,
unknown to him, started a chain of events that led to Wilson's
mission three years ago. His staff pressed the CIA for information
about it one year later. And it was Libby who talked about Wilson's
wife working at the CIA with at least two reporters before her
identity became public, according to evidence Fitzgerald has
amassed and which parties close to the case have acknowledged.

Lawyers in the case said Fitzgerald has focused extensively
on whether behind-the-scenes efforts by the vice president's
aides and other senior Bush aides were part of a criminal campaign
to punish Wilson in part by unmasking his wife.

Intentions elusive

In a move people involved in the case read as a sign that
the end is near, Fitzgerald's spokesman yesterday told the Associated
Press that the prosecutor planned to announce his conclusions
in Washington, where the grand jury has been meeting, instead
of Chicago, where the prosecutor is based. Some lawyers close
to the case cited courthouse talk that Fitzgerald might announce
his findings as early as tomorrow, though hard evidence about
his intentions and timing remained elusive.

In the course of the investigation, Fitzgerald has been exposed
to the intense, behind-the-scenes fight between Cheney's office
and the CIA over prewar intelligence and the vice president's
central role in compiling and then defending the intelligence
used to justify the war. Miller, in a first-person account Sunday
in the Times, recalled that Libby complained in a June 23, 2003,
meeting in his office that the CIA was engaged in "selective
leaking" and a "hedging strategy" that would make
the agency look equally prescient whether or not weapons of mass
destruction were found in Iraq.

The special prosecutor has personally interviewed numerous
officials from the CIA, White House and State Department. In
the process, he and his investigative team have talked to a number
of Cheney aides, including Mary Matalin, his former strategist;
Catherine Martin, his former communications adviser; and Jennifer
Millerwise, his former spokesman. In the case of Millerwise,
she talked with the prosecutor more than two years ago but never
appeared before the grand jury, according to a person familiar
with her situation.

CIA briefings

Starting in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
the vice president was at the forefront of a White House campaign
to persuade Congress and the American public that invading Iraq
was central to defeating terrorists worldwide. Cheney, a longtime
proponent of toppling Saddam Hussein, led the White House effort
to build the case that Iraq was an imminent threat because it
possessed a dangerous arsenal of weapons.

Before the war, he personally traveled to CIA headquarters
for briefings, an unusual move that some critics interpreted
as an effort to pressure intelligence officials into supporting
his view of the evidence. After the war, when critics started
questioning whether the White House relied on faulty information
to justify war, Cheney and Libby were central to the effort to
defend the intelligence and discredit the naysayers in Congress
and elsewhere.

Administration officials acknowledge that Cheney was immersed
in Iraq intelligence, and pressed aides repeatedly for information
on weapons programs. He regularly requested follow-up information
from the CIA and others when a piece of intelligence caught his
eye. Wilson's trip, for example, was triggered by a question
Cheney asked during a regular morning intelligence briefing.
He had received a Defense Intelligence Agency report alleging
Iraq had sought uranium from Niger and wanted to know what else
the CIA may have known. Cheney's office was not told ahead of
time about the Wilson mission to investigate the claim.

In the Bush White House, Cheney typically has operated secretly,
relying on advice from a tight circle of longtime advisers, including
Libby, David Addington, his counsel, and his wife and two children,
including Liz, a top State Department official. But, a former
Cheney aide, who requested anonymity, said it is "implausible"
that Cheney himself was involved in the leaking of Plame's name
because he rarely, if ever, involved himself in press strategy.

One fact apparently critical to Fitzgerald's inquiry is when
Libby learned about Plame and her CIA employment. Information
that has emerged so far leaves this issue murky. A former CIA
official told investigators that Cheney's office was seeking
information about Wilson in May 2003, but it's not certain that
officials with the vice president learned of the Plame connection
then.

Miller, in her account, said Libby raised the issue of Plame
in the June 23, 2003, meeting, describing her as a CIA employee
and asserting that she had arranged his trip to Niger. Earlier
that month, Libby discussed Wilson's trip with The Washington
Post but never mentioned Wilson's wife.

Document at State

Senior administration officials said there was a document circulated
at the State Department -- before Libby talked to Miller -- that
mentioned Plame. It was drafted in June as an administrative
letter and addressed to then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman,
who was acting secretary at the time since both Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell and Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage
were out of the country.

As a former State Department official involved in the process
recalled it, Grossman wanted the letter as background for a meeting
at the White House where the discussion was focused on then growing
criticism of Bush's inclusion in his January State of the Union
speech of the allegation that Hussein had been seeking uranium
from Niger.

The letter to Grossman discussed the reasons Bureau of Intelligence
and Research (INR) did not believe the intelligence, which originated
from foreign sources, was accurate. It had a paragraph near the
beginning, marked "(S)," meaning it was classified
secret, describing a meeting at the CIA in February 2002, attended
by another INR analyst, where Valerie Wilson introduced her husband
as the person who was to go to Niger.

Attached to the letter were the notes from the INR analyst
who had attended the session, but they were written well after
the event occurred and contained mistakes about who was there
and what was said, according to a former intelligence official
who reviewed the document in the summer of 2003.

Grossman has refused to answer questions about the letter,
and it is not clear whether he talked about it at the White House
meeting he was said to have attended, according to the former
State official.

Fitzgerald has questioned several witnesses from the CIA and
State Department before the grand jury about the INR memo, according
to lawyers familiar with the case.

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